Hanami Memories
by YumeMori
Summary: Post IY, YYH manga. It takes three years for sakura trees to mature, and it takes this long for Kagome and Hiei. Yet even when the blossoms have blown away, the memories they made remain.


**Disclaimer:** I claim no ownership of _Sengoku Otogizoushi - InuYasha_ or _Yu Yu Hakusho. InuYasha_ belongs to Takahashi Rumiko, Shogakukan, Viz Media, ShoPro Entertainment, and Shounen; while _Yu Yu Hakusho_ belongs to Togashi Yoshihiro, Shueisha, Viz Media, and Shounen. No profit or money of any kind is made from this fan-created crossover.  
**Warnings:** Present tense; Heavy symbology; Rated M for sexual situation; Mild violence; Fluff; Light angst; Very light swearing  
**Word Count:** 6422

* * *

_Hanami Memories  
_

* * *

_Somei Yoshino_ blooms for just one week each year. It is an enduring tree with transient blossoms. It is beauty and fragrance; ornamental delicacy in clusters of white splashed with pink. Its blossoms are the epitome of _mono no aware_: the sensitivity of ephemera expressed in a piece of work crafted by nature's loving hand.

The flowers bud in late winter. Come early spring, they bloom in spectacular fashion. Then they die without ever tasting summer: this is all Hiei chooses to notice about the trees. Kagome is not surprised given who she thinks Hiei is.

"You find this _beautiful_?"

"Yes. It's beautiful because it doesn't last forever."

Beautiful in this case means fleeting to Hiei, she is sure. Yet Kagome is mortal and sixteen and will never have to endure centuries, and she sees beauty in the strangest of things just as Hiei does.

He takes sure steps toward the sakura trees with their branches bare of all save for a few young buds just beginning to appear, and he brings one branch close to his face for scrutiny. She is certain he is no closer to understanding what she finds beautiful about it than he was seconds before. He lets go and steps back to watch as the branches and tree sway from the sudden loss of weight.

They watch as it strives to return to its normal state of being, as it was before they stumbled across it. Were it not for KoEnma's request for her to watch over Genkai's shrine in exchange for overlooking her time-traveling and for Hiei to show her around the property, Kagome thinks the tree would have been just fine on its own. Yet now that she disturbed it, as it was she who noticed the lone stretch of sakura trees alongside the river amidst the hundreds of chō of forests and mountains and ocean, she feels as though its life will be a different one.

At the moment, the _Somei Yoshino_ are bare skeletons of trees. Their green leaves have already sprouted and died and fallen from its last blooming. All that remains are barren, dull branches spider-webbed with each other. It is not yet the middle of March, and there are only a few buds attempting to blossom. Yet it is still far too early for such shows. For now, they sway and drop the petals and buds not meant to bloom that catch the wind of a dying day to drift through their gentle fall like tiny puffs of clouds that are burned away by the sun.

"Leave it to a miko to find beauty and art in death. Does it do its job of comforting the dying?"

It is not his words that are cruel. In fact, she is certain that had it been anyone other than Hiei saying such things, the words would be spoken with a quiet and curious pondering. It is in the way he says them. They are harsh and cutting from a certain bitter throb in his baritone, and so fitting against the early morning backdrop. They are simple words, and this, more than anything else, is what makes them mocking.

She clasps her hands behind her back and rocks back on her heels. "How funny, coming from you. There is a saying I know you know. 'What the cherry is among flowers is the samurai among men.'"

"I am no samurai. If you think I have honor, you'll be sorely mistaken when you find my sword buried in your heart."

Kagome does not bother to explain to him that she is not referencing the honor of samurai, but the warrior aspect. She thinks he knows what she means. She also thinks he will not appreciate the comparison as yōkai and death do not go together save when "causing" is put between the words for him.

And for now they have a tenuous acquaintance that she does not attempt to press her luck. He has already tried to kill her weeks ago when she first arrived and thought the worst of her because of her hama no reiryoku. She does not blame him: miko and yōkai do not have the best history with each other. It is this reason why KoEnma blackmailed him into being her guide, and his samurai-loyalty keeps him from abandoning her which is why she does not antagonize him. When this awkward tolerance of each other is a fond memory for her to laugh about as she reminisces years in the future, Kagome knows that this image of him facing bare sakura trees is what she will remember most.

* * *

Hiei turns out to be correct: he is no samurai.

Instead he is a killer as only a yōkai can be. Life in the Makai is hard from what Kagome can gather, and much of his life has been filled with bloodshed and treachery and survival. Until becoming entangled with the three men he calls his friends, he has never known a day of rest. It is what separates him from humans even while casually strolling. They have memories of home, of their mothers and fathers and lovers; they have families, someone seems to always be waiting on them to return home. This is true even for Kagome. It is why she nearly died a year ago when they first met: she hesitated to attack because of those thoughts, and he did not because he does not have them to think on in the arch of the fatal swing. He does not know what it is like to have someone cry because he has died, because he will not be returning home. Kagome does. It is why he cannot let go of his peripheral battle vision, and why she does not have one outside of battle.

And now that he lives in the human realm (never mind that it is just the late Genkai's property and can not be considered entirely in the human realm) he seems lost, and his restlessness is a simmering fire in the air when he loiters with Kurama and Yūsuke or watches Kagome interact with those seeking training. She understands that it is because he does not know how to live a normal life where he does not have to kill. He loves the scent of freshly spilt blood, and smiles in the face of a good battle, yet he does not know the first thing about helping for the sake of helping or how to smile.

Kagome is more than happy to be the one to teach him as she is a miko as only she can be. She does not see a bloodthirsty yōkai in Hiei, but a traumatic soul trying to live in a strange world because it is the one where those he cares about live. The human world and all its ways are still new to him, as she can understand. Though, one day, she hopes he will find his peace—the beauty in sakura—and she knows when that day comes the wait will be worth it.

There is always a hopeful barrenness at the beginning of anything. Yet the acerbity of centuries, the flimsy explanations for budding lives killed, the bloody pools of guilt hidden in the center of a soul will destroy what could bloom if pushed too fast. Kagome understands this from her time with Inuyasha, so she is content to wait however long it takes Hiei.

"Carrying on Genkai's legacy," Hiei says. It is not quite a question and not quite a statement, and it comes off more like a mocking jab just like the one he uses to impale three hanami dango on his skewer. It is careless and efficient as though he has done it too many times to care anymore. Kagome knows he has as she knows how well he handles his sword and his insults. "The last three she trained should be proof enough that you can't cultivate good human psychics without a proper fear of death. Hn, all too fitting in the case of your sakura." The end of his skewer is pointing at the blooming sakura trees behind them, and he smirks with amusement at their private joke.

There is little more for her to do than shake her head in the face of such a smirk, but Kagome smiles. They have only known each other for a year so she does not know where Hiei picked up his odd mocking sense of humor. She enjoys it more than some of the other sides to the flickering, smoldering yōkai who tried to kill her when she was barely sixteen for stepping foot on the land KoEnma asked her to look after, and all of which she is learning in a breeze of looks and glares and teasing insults. She is still uncertain on how to react to this calm, teasing Hiei as she is better acquainted with the shut-in, laconic Hiei. During their first meetings, she has learned the way he hides himself in dark clothing, the haughty set of his chin as he holds his sword to make the killing blow, and the way his eyes can cut through a person with just one look. Now he is allowing her to see new sides to complete his image: his love of sweets, the smirk his lips pull into when he has hit the truth of a situation with one of his "jokes", the way his right hand lays idle yet always at the ready to draw his sword faster than a storm can brew a cloud. With practiced ease from dealing with Inuyasha, she is able to harmonize these seeds with the rest that make up who Hiei is.

"I didn't ask for your _biased_ opinion," Kagome says. Her juvenile smile and careless flip of her wrist show that she is teasing. They both know she does appreciate his opinion, if not for the fact that she asked for it when telling him of what KoEnma suggested to her.

Hiei places his dango-free skewer on the plate, parallel between the treats and he, before placing his elbows on his knees and leaning forward, his fingers interlacing to hold up his chin. It is a smooth movement that Kagome knows she will never be able to replicate, so she settles for leaning back against the steps leading into the river and turning her head to take in his profile and all the things he will not say. He stares at her: impolite and direct as is his way.

"It's not an opinion. Merely a fact. I had hoped you'd understand the difference." He does this sometimes, taking on a dry business-like quality as he discusses matters of life and death. She is grateful for it at times as it dulls the sting of pain when something goes wrong. "You still haven't told me how you're going to attract actual human psychics who will let you train them. And what will you do if one of them becomes like Sensui?"

"There will always be someone who wants to learn." She does not answer his question on purpose, and she knows he knows it. They already know the answer to the question. Miko she may be, but she has killed before and will do so again to keep the world safe.

"I said _actual_ psychics. I'm not talking about idiots caught up in fanta—"

"If they want to learn, I will teach them," Kagome says; her voice as sharp as the edges of the dango skewers between them. "I will not, however, let you demean them in such ways. You can be such a jerk at times."

Hiei pulls back, his arms and elbows falling off his knees in graceful moves, and he does not bother to look at her as he mimics her pose in a careless, battle-ready way. She wonders if there is ever a moment he is not prepared for a fight. He calls her stupid with his smooth baritone though he does not say it in a cruel way.

"Perhaps," she agrees. "But KoEnma-sama is right. Yōkai cannot be allowed to roam the Ningenkai freely as they are, their crimes unaccounted for. It's causing so many problems, and they'll only get worse as time goes on. There needs to be spirit detectives again or relations between yōkai and humans will go down the drain again."

"We've all retired." Just as she ignored his question, he ignores the clear meaning of her words.

She smiles and shifts her weight to better face him without leaving her lounging pose. "_New_ spirit detectives. But better, willing to help them fit in more yet being the authority when situations get out of control. And it's not like I have any worlds to save anymore."

"Exactly," he says, and she is surprised that he is agreeing with her. "It's not your world to save anymore either."

Kagome huffs, upset that this rare moment of an agreeing Hiei was just a farce. He takes a special pleasure in keeping her from feeling any sort of elation over anything he says to her, she knows. Yet she enjoys such easy banter and how he is able to show her the flaws in her logic. "I _can _teach them," she implores. She may not have reiki like they will, but she fought in the past and knows there are some things more important than being the perfect teacher. Such as just trying to help as some knowledge and guidance is better than none. "I can help build better relations between humans and yōkai. I _know_ I can do this."

"You can. But you'll never be able to teach them anything that saves their lives. You can't teach them to attack, you can't teach them to kill, you can't teach them anything they need to know in actual combat that'll keep them from dying."

"That may be true, but I can show them how. If they can't use it in battle, then it's their fault. But at least I can give them a chance."

He glances at her, and for a second their gazes tangle like the branches of two trees pushed together by the wind. For that brief second she sees his skepticism of her and her idealistic desires to better the world, his beliefs that she is foolish for wanting to be friends with those who would see her dead, his cruel concern for her. Then the second ends and he looks back at the scenery and river. He calls her and her desires foolish, and tells her to do what she wants because he will enjoy watching it crash and burn.

At this point in their lives, they have a different kind of friendship and so she smiles before eating another hanami dango. She knows that though his words are mean and discouraging, it is his way of encouraging her to do what she wants. She does not thank him for it as she knows it will cause him to leave with some true cruel words. He is still learning her ways, and he does not quite know what to make of gratitude. She does not think he has been thanked for anything he has done, just as he believes he has done nothing worth being thanked over which is why she knows he is not yet ready to hear it.

Yet, in the near future as she thinks back on their relationship, Kagome will point to this early spring afternoon—as he carelessly rested on the stone steps, and the sakura not meant to enjoy a long bloom catch in their hair, and the silent emotions that fill the cadences between their words—as the day she fell in love with him; the day when "foolish" and "stupid" and "jerk" have only the beginnings of affection in the tones they use to describe and call the other with.

* * *

Kagome strives hard over the next year to not give Hiei the pleasure of watching her fail at training students.

As she knew, once word circulated that there was a place for psychics to learn and possibly gain employment putting their skills to use, many eager faces arrived. With the blessing of Hiei and the former spirit detectives, she uses the gaming equipment hidden in one of the many buildings to determine who has reiki and who does not. She sends no one away, though she has given those without reiki the task of teaching human ways to yōkai. As she told him a year ago between the river and the sakura trees, she teaches those who wish to learn.

Hiei calls her foolish for wasting her time on those who do not have reiki instead of focusing more on those who do, yet she knows he eavesdrops on the lessons from the eaves. She does not know what he has to gain from it, though he always manages to appear and whisk her away whenever one of her students gets too close or asks something too personal or stammers out a request for a dinner date. What this means in their unwonted relationship, she is unsure. Though she takes it as a good sign toward something greater; not just for them, but for him. The centuries do not cling to his skin as strongly, his eyes hold a softness toward her that is less guarded than before, his sword is no longer a permanent fixture on his body when near her; she feels as though he is coming into his own at his own pace.

Unlike Inuyasha and she, Hiei and she do not have an adventure across Japan of the Warring States Era to force a closeness, nor do they have adrenaline-pumping frays to forge trust and respect, nor do they have a shared enemy to keep their paths entwined. Instead they have a common antagonist who pushed them together, and quick quipped persiflages that developed a history and inside-jokes, and a common past of uncommon feats that allow for years of talking and understanding. Kagome enjoys this relationship more as it is easy to just be herself with Hiei.

Over two years seems like a long time in retrospect, though she thinks it is just right for Hiei. He is older and more jaded than Inuyasha; he is unable to change in the span of a few months. And it is a subtle change that she does not realize it until one of her students points it out to her.

It was earlier in the summer day after she has finished going through kata with a group of her reiki-wielding students. It was hot, as mid-summer days often are, and they were all tense and uncomfortable and sweaty. For a while, they lounged under some leafier trees trying to find the conviction to move and head back to the main living building and talked as they did at meals. Not even Hiei felt the desire to move from his spot in the branches above them, barely adding to the conversation even when Kagome prompted him to.

Until one of them teased her about their relationship. Hiei did not get involved as it was subtle enough that only she could pick up on what was being implied. It fast got out of hand with the teasing and joking, and to prove a point she was tossed into the river.

She still does not know what point they were trying to prove as Hiei did nothing from what she could see. There are no sounds of battle, no screaming, no groans of pain, so she can only assume that nothing has changed.

When she sits down on her futon and undoes the towel she wrapped her hair in after that night's bath, Hiei's hands brush hers aside and works the towel through her hair. It is the first time she has felt his hands, and she wonders why it has taken so long. She knows she will not forget them: they are warm as only a fire elemental yōkai's hands can be, and rough enough to scrape and catch against her skin, and she can feel the callouses from centuries spent using a sword. They are far from soft, and she prefers it this way as she knows the silver lining of the cloud that is his life is cool sharp steel like his hands.

"Why did you let them?" he asks, and she can not figure out what the tone is. She expects his normal mocking tone that makes her feel as though she is doing all the wrong things the wrong way, or the tone he uses with her when he is teasing her in his cruel way, but he spoke with neither. It is curious and soft, or as well as those words can be used to describe anything coming from Hiei, with a hard undertone she has never heard on him before.

She smiles and tilts her head back in the hopes of catching a glimpse of his face. "You should've joined me! It was so cool and refreshing. If it's that hot tomorrow, I may do it myself."

It sounds almost like he has sighed, and she finds he has snatched the towel off her head. She hears it land on the floor with a wetness that will stain.

"Hiei—"

"You're an idiot." It is not the first time he has called her that, yet it is the way he says it that causes her breath to catch in her throat. She feels as though she has learned what he means when he says such things to her all because they are spoken with a jarring deliberateness as he twists a lock of her hair around his finger and tugs lightly.

She turns to face him and can feel him let go of her damp hair in favor of dragging his hand across her shoulder. It is moments like this when his eyes are unguarded as they cut into hers, and their labels—_miko_ and _yōkai _and _human_ and _killer_ and _reincarnation _and _unwanted_—fade in the warm breeze of a dying day, and they are simply _Kagome_ and _Hiei_.

Just like his stare, his kiss is direct and impolite; he does not wait for permission, he simply takes without apology. She does not focus on this, but the rough plain of his lips as he places closed-mouth kisses against hers. His hand curls around the edge of her sleeping robe pushing it over the curve of her shoulder.

This is when their kisses become fervent as tongue brushes tongue and nose bumps into nose and teeth clash from their awkward movements. She is sure it is not Hiei's first time, but it is hers, and it is his first time with a human or an inexperienced woman, and they grope about as they go. Her hair does not want to stay out of her face when he pulls her on top of him; his belts do not want to unfasten under her fumbling, anxious fingers; they are both uncertain what to do with their hands and where to touch, yet they complete the motions and soon it is her skin against his as they guide and move against and with each other. And only the walls are listening to their teasing remarks, their whimpers and moans, their soft instructions, the soft grunts that follow each thrust and slapping of skin.

And the only witness to his self-control unraveling is her, not even the cloudless night can make this claim. Though she remembers only flickers of images of this night, she cherishes each one. The way his fingers brush across her thigh seeking purchase to reposition her leg, the way her fingers glide easily across his sweaty chest from the summer heat and the body heat, the way he arches his back and she can feel every taunt muscle constrict before relaxing in the throes of climax, and the way he collapses on her tired body expecting and trusting that she will hold him close until the pleasure is a memory in the back of his mind. This absolute trust in the seconds that he catches his breath against her body where he is vulnerable enough that she could kill him with just one brush of her hama no reiryoku, yet knowing she will not is what Kagome will remember this time next year when she needs the strength to carry on.

* * *

Hiei is correct again: without a proper fear of death she can teach human psychics, but the lessons do not stick.

She gave them the tools, she gave them all her knowledge, but they are human in the way she was human at fifteen. They have not killed and they agonize over the thought of having to. All they can think on when it comes time for a serious fight is how, with one misstep, it will be their own family and lovers and friends crying at their wake for them as they will not be returning. It is why they hesitate, and why yōkai like Hiei do not. They know yōkai are real, yet they do not understand that, given half-a-chance, most yōkai will kill them without a shred of remorse. It is why Hiei is right: they do not stand a chance.

It is why during a cold mid-winter day, everything crashes and burns as Hiei predicted.

Yōkai are common on the many chō of property as they are welcome. The ones who wish to cause trouble are usually easy for Hiei or her to spot, yet this one was not. He remained quiet and unassuming and kept his power levels weak and his words genteel. She thinks that these should have been their warning signs, and she knows the reason why they overlooked them. Three years of quietude will kill a killer.

The first scream is far-off to her and Hiei and her students as they trained near the leafy sakura trees. Their fists and legs and minds freeze as they hesitate and try to rationalize that it is nothing because it is just _one_ scream. People and humans scream all the time. There is a heaviness in her stomach as she knows there is a very horrible reason as to why someone screamed. Hiei lands on his feet next to her, his hand on his sword though he has not drawn it yet.

"This yōki—"

"Get down!"

His shout does not register in her mind; instead she notices the hard ground as she lands on and snaps her wrist, the disturbance of air as a metallic weapon cuts through it, the shuffling of leaves as Hiei retreats to one of the sakura trees, the spilling of blood on the shrine grounds, the screams of her dying and mutilated students, the dull scrap of metal versus wood and the following fall of a tree, the cries of the emotional avengers, and the sharp knowledge that there are centuries separating everyone on this battlefield. It shows in the way Hiei moves, swift and sure with every dodge, block and parry of the kusarigama; the ways in which her students hesitate and attack blindly for their fallen comrades only to fall themselves in the face of the weighted end of the kusarigama; the way with which she blocks out the screams and adrenaline and the dead to pull the wounded to safety. Kagome has been in battles, but the art of a massacre-in-progress is new to her. She dares not look at the dead as she gathers the wounded and does her best to save them and comfort them—"No, of course you're not going to die!"; "You have to remember that your little sister is waiting for you to return. You're not going to break that promise, are you?"; "Let Hiei handle him. Masu-kun wouldn't want you to die trying to avenge him, you know that, don't you?"—as she feels as though she owes her students this much as she had been unable to save the rest.

She does not expect it when the giant weighted end of the kusarigama—as the yōkai is stronger than a human and so wields a gigantic version of the weapon, which does little to make her feel better about the situation—smashes into her and one of her students. She notices it a second too late, but does not hesitate to move. It is too late and her student takes the full brunt of it, it is a small comfort to see that she died at impact, and her leg is hit. With all the blood that is hers and is not hers, and the chaos of screams and charged air, she can not tell how wounded it is. She thinks it might be broken in worse ways than her wrist.

With eyes ready to close from shock and trauma, Kagome gets her first real glimpse of their attacker. He brings to mind memories of Naraku with his tendrils of inky hair swept into a high ponytail, the sharp chiseled features of his face, the smirk full of death and danger and elation, the cruel slant of his eyes. And he is unaware of a battered Hiei aiming a death blow to his head. She is too tired and hurt, and not just in the physical sense, and her eyes can not give away this fact.

Yet he seems to know as his smirk widens enough to turn his entire face into a mask of insane joy. She calls out Hiei's name, trying to warn him, and it does and does not work. He shifts his wrist to block the kama and he has enough strength to keep their blades locked until his eyes slide over to her for not even a second—she can see the confusion, the wanton blood lust, the concern, his second of hesitation—and knows their attacker notices it, too. It takes only a half-second of inattention, which she knows would have never happened had she never disturbed Hiei's life three years ago, for one to be killed.

His kama and Hiei's katana screech as the kama slides across the blade before removing the guard and Hiei's hand.

It is only a second later that a kunai embeds itself in the yōkai's arm, purifying it. Kagome did not hesitate when she saw Hiei's hand fall from his body. She rifled through the clothes of the dead body next to her for the kunai she knows her student always carried, and without thinking let her hama no reiryoku flow through it. She knows it is not enough to kill him as her wrist is broken and it is only a kunai, not an arrow. She does succeed in removing him of his dominant arm which is all she wanted to do.

He smirks and grabs the bloody stump where his arm used to be. "This is only the beginning of the pain I'll bring upon you, Kagome-miko." He mocks her with the way he drawls her name and title, and she does not know what she has done to him as she has never met him. He kicks away Hiei whom is trying to wield his sword with his left hand before running off to wherever he has been staying.

She manages to pull herself up, and she does not remember if she limped or crawled her way over to Hiei, but she remembers being by his side and trying to staunch the bleeding of his severed wrist before he bleeds out and dies. She feels as though she owes him this much as she knows she is the reason he hesitated and why he did not notice sooner. She knows that he has changed, perhaps into the yōkai she hoped he would be, as the past three years of teaching him that there is more to life than the centuries before, the lives he has killed, the blood and chaos he has wrought have become who he is. Just as she knows she has changed, perhaps into the person he had been before, as the past three years seem moot when she will find out that the centuries have caught up to her, that hundreds of lives were and are killed because of her, that because she has not returned to the past she has created this monster who enjoys blood and death and the chaos it creates.

Kagome does not know how long she does her best to keep him from dying, yet it is too soon before his friends—Kurama, Yūsuke, Yukina, Kuwabara, and Botan—arrive and too late for any of the other dead. She remembers the rough hands of Yūsuke—they are nothing like Hiei's hands and she does not want them—pull her away from Hiei. Kurama does his best to heal her injuries as Yukina and Botan work on Hiei and finding ways to reattach his hand. She catches only snippets of the sentences flying between them: "This is going to hurt—", "—so much blood—", "—the hell did KoEnma not—", "—going to make it, poor—", "—me, bite down on this if it hu—"; until she does not know who is talking and why, but knows the unfocused look in Hiei's eyes.

Then Kurama snaps part of her femur back into her leg.

* * *

It is early April when Kagome is able to walk again and Hiei regains the ability to flick his wrist. Yukina and Botan have taken care of cleansing the areas of the compound and land where her students died and bled. Their wakes were weeks ago, yet she was unable to attend as she could not and did not want to get out of bed. Hiei says nothing of "I told you so" though he was right. The students who lived train with a fierceness under Yūsuke and Kurama and Kuwabara as they finally understand what it means for life and death to hang in the balance. And they finally understand why they did not stand a chance. She wishes that they could have lived without this knowledge.

She knows the sakura have to be in bloom, and she has never lived her life crippled by fear and neither has Hiei, so she asks Hiei to accompany her to the grove of sakura trees. She does not want her last memory of that place to be of that battle. It has always been a long walk, but it is longer now: her leg had been smashed by the weighted end of a kusarigama, not even the world's best healer could fix it entirely, and so she can not move it in full motions. She limps at times, but Hiei knows her ways enough by now that he does not offer to help and he does not remark on her slowness, but ignores it. Just as she ignores the twitch his pinkie contracts at times and the way his chopsticks clank together at meals now.

Aside from one less sakura tree, there are no other changes and it reminds her of that day two years ago when they ate dango and discussed the future and were only friends. There is none of that know, just his company on the stone steps leading down into the river and the sound of the water lapping at earth and stone. She does not hear him move, yet is not startled when his hands, those hands she knows too well to be startled by, brush her hair behind her ear. A branch scratching against her scalp confuses her until she touches what he has pinned her hair back with, the soft petals of sakura meet her fingertips.

He says nothing, but she can see all she needs to in his eyes: he does not blame her for his hesitation as he should know better, he does not want to be blamed for her bitterness as she should know better, and it is still as direct and impolite as ever, though she finds it to be a part of him she fell in love with. She leans against him, murmuring her soft thanks, and he does not turn away. He does not acknowledge it, and she is fine with that as the fact that she can feel his body against hers is enough.

They are content to enjoy the quietude for the first time in months, and they refuse to give form to the thoughts that it is just the calm before the storm. They do not know that it will be their last fond memory together because in one week KoEnma will reveal his findings about the yōkai, and why he attacked—it is as Kagome thought: it is her fault because she did not return to the past when she should have at eighteen, so she never killed him when he was just a minor problem—and she will decide to return to the past, and Hiei will fight her on it, and the sakura he placed in her hair will die, and she will not return after killing him because the well will be destroyed. Yet that is one week from today, and today he places his arm around her shoulders and they will spend the night tangling their limbs and lips and love. And three months from now, when the yōkai is accidentally thrown through the side of the well, blocking the passage, it is the look on Hiei's face when he places the sakura in her hair that Kagome will remember and weep for having lost.

_Somei Yoshino_ bloom for just one week in early spring each year after needing around three years to mature. It takes Hiei this long, and it was mid-summer, to brush aside the centuries and blood and death and anger. It takes Kagome this long, and it was mid-winter, to have the centuries and good deeds and lives not killed to catch up to her. Their lives endure past this, yet their blossoms have always been transient and shifting through the stages of their lives. This is what makes their memories beautiful, because they have learned to enjoy even the most impermanent of objects and relationships and people.

* * *

_This was written for The Deadliest Sin Community ( http : / thedeadliestsin . proboards33 . com ) for their May prompt: "teacher and student". It was originally for the April prompts, but it fit the May prompt better (and this is totally not an entire month late, lol)... Oh well, it's a mash-up, lol. I hope you all have enjoyed it because this has taken me over two months to write now._

**Lingo and Symbology:**  
_Hanami:_ lit. Blossom viewing. The week in early April when most take time off from work/school to view the blooming sakura, either alone or with friends and family. It is a time of celebration, usually with picnics and drinking underneath the sakura trees.  
_Somei Yoshino: Prunus x yedoensis_. The Japanese name for the sakura tree. It's the most popular and pictured sakura tree, that has clusters of 6-8 white blossoms. Usually they are tinged pink toward the stem. It blooms for only a week each year.  
_Mono no Aware_: lit. The 'Ahh'-ness of Things; The Sensitivity of Ephemera. It is a philosophical concept that is, really, only able to be experienced. Basically, it is the sadness and wonder of finding beauty in something that will die soon, like sakura or human life or relationships. Used often during hanami to describe the feeling one feels upon viewing them.  
_Miko:_ lit. A female shaman; female shrine attendant, female go-between between the living and spirit realms, etc... Because of the purity in Shinto beliefs, they are tied into being able to purify people and objects and souls, which is why there is some soul references used in descriptions.  
_"What the cherry is among flowers is the samurai among men"_: An actual saying. Sakura are considered the king amongst flowers, and do not live long; Samurai were considered honorable and high-ranking, intelligent men in the past, and they did not live long lives either. This is spoofed by Kuwabara in _YYH_ when he says, "A mulberry is a tree, Kuwabara is a man."  
_Yōkai:_ lit. Magical Creature(s)  
_Hama no Reiryoku:_ lit. Purifying Spirit Power.  
_Sakura_: lit. Cherry Blossoms. The kanji for sakura is that of a woman with sakura in her hair which is why there are a few instances of this in the fic; often (and popularly) associated with clouds which is why there are so many cloud and sky metaphors.  
_Hanami Dango:_ A version of the sweet treat made specifically for the Hanami season.  
_Reiki:_ lit. Spirit Energy.  
_Ko-:_ A prefix that means "child of" in this case.  
_-sama:_ A very polite form of "-san" used mainly during keigo (polite speech).  
_Chō:_ Japanese area measurement; the equivalent of 0.9917 hectares or about 2.451 acres  
_Yōki:_ lit. Demonic/Magical Creature Energy  
_Kusarigama:_ A traditional Japanese weapon consisting of a sickle (_kama_) on a metal chain with a heavy iron weight at the end.  
_Kunai:_ A small throwing knife.


End file.
